Chuntian Academy International

Which is better in you opinion Karate, Tae Kwon do or Kung fu? Every time I see kung fu at competitions they don't do well.

Kung Fu Myths

Tournaments

Authentic Kung Fu styles are not used in martial arts tournaments. In America, Canada, Australia, Japan, UK, etc. practically all Kung Fu moves are illegal in a tournament. Because of the serious nature of Chinese arts, Kung Fu remains one of the last martial arts to become a sport (like Tae kwon do).
Kung Fu practitioners are typically more interested in practical combat, rather than scoring more points or looking good in front of judges.
However, many Kung Fu schools do attend martial arts tournaments, however most of them are merely there to demonstrate forms and moves, rather than actually participate in any competition.
Those who do, use a severely modified version of Kung Fu and shouldn't be considered as real, where everything has been changed to make it legal.

Please read on for more comparisons.

What belt are you?

When people find out I do Kung Fu, one of the first questions I often get asked is, "what belt are you on?" Kung Fu is a Chinese martial art and the colored belt system comes from Japanese martial arts (and was adopted by Korean martial arts during the Japanese occupation around 1922). Even Japanese martial arts originally did not use colored belts. Arts such as Karate-do come from the peasant class of Okinawa. Peasants aren't known for wearing colorful uniforms. The colored belt system was introduced by the Japanese Imperial military as a form of identifying rank and is still used by many Japanese and Korean schools for the same reason.
In Chinese Kung Fu, this system often not used. Often, it is viewed as somewhat unnecessary. Unlike many Japanese and Korean arts, Kung Fu classes, it is rather obvious who is more skilled than who isn't. This goes for any class really. Think back to your school days, in mathematics classes, everyone knew who was better than who. At CAI however, we divide the students into Levels for the self-defense based programs and Ranks for assigning teacher and generational status. This is varied with different kung-fu systems.
I'm not saying that the colored belt system is totally useless. Indeed some Chinese martial arts schools are imitating it with colored sashes. However, as pointed out before, it is not a strict necessity.
Furthermore, the actual colors and number of colors of belts varies between martial arts.
For instance, many Aikido schools have only three belts - white, brown and black.
Also, the image of the black belt has been greatly exaggerated in the West (exaggeration is sometimes a typical trait of Western culture). The black belt means that one is a beginner, now ready to seriously study the martial art. All belts below black are merely preparatory. Beyond black are the dan, (CAI RANK) which means "level"; so first dan, or rank translated to English, means "first level."

Uniforms

Japanese martial arts has really set the Western stereotype of martial arts. Here is a very basic breakdown of typical uniforms:
Japanese martial artists wear a white uniform based on what the peasants of Okinawa wore. Some western schools have colored and black uniforms, but traditionally, all uniforms are white. This is because in Japanese culture, white symbolizes the human spirit. Some Japanese martial artists view colored and black gi's as a deviation from the martial spirit.
Bushido-based arts, such as Kendo and Aikido also use the hakama - traditional wide Japanese trousers, worn by the samurai.

The basic Chinese uniform is also based on what Chinese peasants wore. Typically, this includes black trousers and a plain white T-shirt and simple jacket.
Now may schools as well as CAI wear black trousers, white, red or black T-shirt with a logo or schools name. Some schools also include a Chinese jacket as well.

Some schools also use sashes - as mentioned before, this is an adaptation from the Japanese belt system.Oh, and Chinese Kung Fu training is not done bare-footed (yes, we keep our shoes on).
The reason why the Japanese remove their shoes during training is because traditionally, Japanese martial arts were practiced on tatami (straw mats) floors. Not only is it rude to where shoes inside a Japanese building, but rough-housing with shoes on would have severely damaged the tatami.
I live in Japan, I made a sufficient amount of grooves on my tatami floor just by casually rocking back on my chair.
Nowadays, the practice of removing the shoes continues for the sake of tradition as well as respect to the dojo and sensei. (same as bowing)

* Bowing

The Japanese have different degrees of bowing - in martial art training, often the most humble form of bowing is used - that is, getting on your knees, placing your hands on the floor in front and bowing very low.
The Chinese bow consists of placing your right fist into the palm of your left hand (representing Yin and Yang - hard and soft), and bowing at about 45 degrees.
It's all a matter of showing respect.

Screaming, yelling -- Hyyyyaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!!!!

There is no screaming in most Chinese Kung Fu styles. I am rather skeptical about the purpose of "kiai" and other forms of screaming. Karate was institutionalized in Japan during the first World War, when the Imperial Forces decided to use it as a way to help brainwash their soldiers.
This also saw the introduction of many elements that have become standard in Karate, such as the coloured belt coding (ranking), punching repetitively in the air (it's a very droning, mind numbing activity, much like marching "left-right-left-right") as well as several modifications made to karate moves (further loss of fluidity etc).
The yelling in martial arts has long been poetically defined as the expulsion of qi (or ki in Japanese). However, I have yet to see a scientific/medical explanation for this. As I mentioned on my web page, But why you would want to expel this energy is beyond me. Respiration is a very important feature of any strenuous physical activity. This is my theory on how yelling in martial arts was developed and why many schools continue to cling on to it: First of all, the human lung never holds more than 1/3 of its maximum capacity. Some people think that in order to improve respiration, that the lung should be used to higher capacity. If you ask very young children to breath out and in, they will often try to empty their lungs, and then breath in sharply to try to fill it up (of course, it is impossible for the lungs to be fully filled or emptied, even when you fully exhale, your lungs are still 10% full of gas). The notion is that if you exhale more carbon dioxide, you can inhale more oxygen. I disagree with this notion. Firstly, if you expend more time expelling gas, your blood starts to become deoxygenated (because you're not inhaling). Then when you do the sharp and _long_ inhale, you're not expelling the carbon dioxide building up in your blood.
Secondly, even high intensive athletes such as swimmers and marathon runners do NOT breathe this way. You will not see Olympic runners, as the starting gun fires, attempt to expel as much air as possible as she takes her first step, and then try to inhale sharply on the next step. Nor will you see Olympic swimmers like Michael Phelps keep his face above water and try to fill his lungs as he swims a few strokes, and then stick his face under the water and blow out all the air in his lungs in a "kiai!"-like fashion that some martial artists do. No. Why? Well, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, it's a very inefficient way to use your lungs. This is where I fail to see the logic of screaming/exhaling sharply in martial arts -- it leads to a very inefficient gaseous exchange in your lungs.
Athletic training does NOT make the athlete use more of their lungs. Olympians use their lungs in the same manner as you and I. The difference is that they use it more efficiently. This is the purpose of "Qi Gong," which is what we use at CAI as opposed to screaming. Qi Gong focusses on training the martial artist to breathe in a more controlled and efficient manner, thus using their lungs more efficiently. That way, you don't end up exhausted and out of breath within the early stages of a fight. If you do a mighty exhale (which is what yelling is, only vocalized), then you are no longer using your lungs in an efficient manner as described above.

How about breaking wood and bricks?

Nope. None of that either, sorry. The Chinese don't see breaking inanimate objects as any real test of one's fighting ability. After all, inanimate objects don't move nor retaliate.

Flying kicks

The probability of one ever needing to use a flying kick in a real fight are more remote than getting struck by lightning on a sunny day.
Hence, many serious martial arts put extremely little focus (if any) on leap kicks. You may see some styles that do flying kicks and turns, such as Wushu forms, which are a crowd pleasing form of exagerated kung fu for competition and to demonstrate agility. These jumps actually are borowed from Chinese opera which emphasis acrobatics type moves. Main land China made traditional combat kung fu forbidden. In the last few decades this modified Chinese opera influenced sport-like form is legal.
In some northern and Korean styles the high flying kicks developed by villagers to kick invaders off of horse back, not needed too much in today's world.

Karate seems more devastating than Kung Fu

Not totally discounting karate here, but it certainly is no more devastating than Kung Fu. Here are some factors which creates the major differences between the perception of Chinese and Japanese arts:

1) Japanese arts seem more aggressive because of the screaming, yelling and breaking of inanimate objects.

2) Chinese arts use far more circular actions than many Japanese arts. Japanese arts like karatedo have very little circular action and have become very short and jarring compared to the circular and smooth motion of Chinese arts. Because Japanese arts stem from Chinese arts, there is some evidence that such circular motions did once exist in Japanese arts. In karate, the basic straight punch actually twists as it moves along. This is a vestigial version of the Chinese circular motion (like the tail bone in humans, if you take my meaning). Some Japanese arts still retain the circular motion from Chinese arts though. A great example is Aikido.

3) Japanese arts typically primarily use the limbs to fight. Chinese arts use the entire body. Let's look at one body part many Japanese styles have lost the use of - the shoulder. This is extremely evident in Japanese karate, where the loss of shoulder use has aided in giving their punches the sharp jarring. The use of the shoulder was first discouraged by the samurai, who considered raising one's shoulder to be unbecoming. However, Okinawante (Okinawan karate - the original form) still retains the use of the shoulders, thus their moves are far less jarring than Japanese karate.

Lion and Dragon Dancing

Lion and Dragon dancing is only practiced by a select few Kung Fu styles, such as Choy Li Fut.
Preying Mantis, like many other styles, does not do this.
However, dancing and fighting styles have often been closely related. Elvis Presley revolutionized dancing when he introduced karate moves in with his own.

The Brazillian art, Capoeira, is a dance form derived from African battle moves.
Dancing is a way of merging training in with casual fun. It also relieves the regimentation of formal training at times. Furthermore, when one goes dancing, one's adrenalin starts pumping... hence the body harks back to training.

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